Following several days of negotiation and rumors, Verizon today announced that it has entered an agreement to sell its media assets to private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion. Apollo will be paying Verizon $4.25 billion in cash, along with preferred interests of $750 million, and Verizon will keep 10% of the company. […]
Monthly Archives: May 2021
Path Robotics raises $56M Series B for automated welding
Columbus, Ohio-based firm Path Robotics today announced the completion of a $56 million Series B. The round, led by Addition (featuring Drive Capital, Basis Set and Lemnos Lab) brings the robotic welding company’s total funding to $71 million. Adding another piece to the broader automated manufacturing puzzle, the company is focused on robotic welding. The […]
Facebook rolls out vaccine finder tool in India, donates $10 million
Facebook has announced a $10 million grant to support emergency response efforts in India and has rolled out its Vaccine Finder tool in the country as the South Asian nation grapples with the latest wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The American social network said that it has partnered with a number of organizations including United […]
Wealthsimple raises $610M at a $4B valuation
Canadian fintech giant Wealthsimple has raised a new round of $750 million CAD (~$610 million) at a post-money valuation of $5 billion CAD (~$4 billion). The round was led by Meritech and Greylock, and includes funding from Inovia, Sagard, Redpoint, TSV, as well as individual investors including Drake, Ryan Reynolds and Michael J. Fox (basically, […]
Hangry, an Indonesian cloud kitchen startup with plans to become a global F&B company, closes $13M Series A
Hangry, an Indonesian cloud kitchen startup that wants to become a global food and beverage company, has raised a $13 million Series A. The round was led by returning investor Alpha JWC Ventures, and included participation from Atlas Pacific Capital, Salt Ventures and Heyokha Brothers. It will be used to increase the number of Hangry’s […]
Bibit raises another growth round led by Sequoia Capital India, this time for $65M
Four months after leading a $30 million growth round in Bibit, Sequoia Capital India has doubled down on its investment in the Indonesian robo-advisor app. Bibit announced today that the firm led a new $65 million growth round that also included participation from Prosus Ventures, Tencent, Harvard Management Company and returning investors AC Ventures and […]
Gillmor Gang: Walk the Dinosaur
[embedded content] Clubhouse hosted another excellent conversation between Josh Constine and Facebook’s audio czar Fidji Simo. The format continues to sparkle, as I was once again forced to choose between MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O’Donnell and just plain audio. JPA won going away. The talk was crisp and the strategies thick with optimism about […]
Supply chains and cyber-security: the new threat
Paul Brislen, Editor. 03 May 2021, 12:47 pm Supply chain management isn’t typically the first thing CIOs think about when considering cyber-security, but for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) it’s pretty much top of mind. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is the part of the GCSB tasked with supporting New Zealand’s critical infrastructure […]
How did Atlanta become a top breeding ground for billion-dollar startups in the Southeast?
Over the past five years, the Southeastern region, led by Atlanta, has gone from being “one of the best kept secrets” in tech, to a vibrant ecosystem teeming with a herd of the billion dollar tech businesses that are referred to in the investment world as “unicorns” (thanks to their supposed rarity). In those five […]
Data was the new oil, until the oil caught fire
We’ve been hearing how “data is the new oil” for more than a decade now, and in certain sectors, it’s a maxim that has more than panned out. From marketing and logistics to finance and product, decision-making is now dominated by data at all levels of most big private orgs (and if it isn’t, I’d […]